Alex and Eliza--A Love Story Page 5

  “Apparently Major André was commissioned on a diplomatic mission to General Gates, for which he was granted safe passage up and down river,” said Angelica. “It had to do with the prisoner exchange for General Burgoyne, and his transport to New York so that he can be sent back to England. When Papa found out he was in Albany, he invited him to dine.”

  “I declare, Papa’s chivalry will be the death of us all. But chivalry wasn’t why my mama let him sign my dance card. She is punishing me.”

  “For the dress, no doubt. Who do you have after him?”

  Eliza looked down and turned paler. “Colonel Hamilton!”

  This time, Angelica exclaimed loudly enough that people turned and looked at them. In a quieter voice, she added, “How could Mama do that, especially after his meeting with Papa?”

  Eliza shrugged. She knew full well how to incur her mother’s wrath. “How did you fare?” she asked Angelica.

  Her sister held out her card with a smile. Only one name was written on it, albeit eight times, for every single dance of the evening: Mr. John Barker Church.

  “What?” Eliza exclaimed. “How did you pull that off?”

  “Simple,” Angelica answered. “I was not foolish enough to leave my card out for Mama to commandeer. Not my first time at the ball,” she added mischievously, flashing a little smile to Mr. Church himself, who stood on the far side of the room, patiently awaiting his dance.

  John Church was almost a decade older than Angelica. Like Major André, he was British born and had only arrived in North America a few years earlier. Unlike Major André, though, he espoused the Revolutionary cause. But he also refused to renounce his British citizenship, and this, coupled with the fact that when he first arrived in the Colonies he set up business under the alias “John Carter,” made many suspicious of his character. General Schuyler had said straight out that he thought Church was a gambler and a spy, and scented something devious about his business methods. However, Mrs. Schuyler, knowing her daughter’s fondness for Church, as well as hearing stories about Church’s growing fortune, had insisted he be allowed to attend the ball. “Until we have proof against him, civility directs us to be for him,” she said diplomatically, and as General Schuyler valued decorum above all things in human society, he had reluctantly assented.

  Eliza looked over at her sister’s paramour. He was not what she would call ugly, but he was far from handsome. He was shorter than Angelica, for one thing, and rather thick through the waist, and his face always had a rather silly-looking smile on it, especially when he looked at Eliza’s older sister, as he’d been doing all evening.

  “Tell me again what you see in him, Ange? Besides his fortune, I mean?” she asked her older sister.

  “I refuse to be an ornament in a gilded cage,” said Angelica, lifting her chin. “And while a pretty face is nice to wake up to, an adoring face is so much more rewarding. Church talks to me like an equal and is grateful for my affection. I need never worry about him stepping out on me. And yes, his fortune is a most welcome quality.”

  “Papa will never allow it, though,” Eliza warned. “You know how he feels about the man.”

  “We shall see,” said Angelica, and Eliza knew her sister was determined to change their father’s mind about her unsuitable suitor.

  Eliza sighed, even as the first song came to an end. Sometimes her sister’s pragmatism was too similar to her mother’s. While Eliza professed no outward interest in romance, at heart she yearned to experience a lush, sweeping love affair of her own.

  She was about to ask Angelica if she’d seen Major André, when she was tapped on the shoulder. She turned to face a fine-looking gentleman whose thick brown hair was pulled back from a high brow, his rich chocolate-colored eyes staring into hers.

  “Miss Schuyler,” a suave British voice announced. “I believe I have the honor of this dance.”

  Eliza’s heart turned a little somersault. She had heard stories of how good-looking Major André was, but she had not been prepared for this. He was the picture of debonair in his dashing suit, which, though not a uniform (wearing his redcoat here probably would have gotten him shot in a duel!), was still sharply cut in a rich burgundy and accented with polished gold buttons and lace at collar and cuffs. She felt as though she were staring into a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

  She curtsied politely. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Major André said, leading her into position directly behind Angelica and John Church. “May I compliment you on your appearance this evening? You are among the brightest flowers here.”

  Eliza couldn’t quite stifle her laugh. “No need to flatter me, Major André. I am aware that my dress is a little drab this evening.”

  The major turned to look her at her directly. “Your dress?” he said smoothly. “I hadn’t noticed it.” His eyes never left hers. “I’m sure it is the loveliest in the room.”

  The music started, saving Eliza from having to answer. For the next fifteen minutes she danced the line with her partner, whose light touch deftly guided her in the turns and twists and bows without ever once overpowering her. Because it was a quadrille, they kept spinning away from each other and coming back, dancing side by side and then turning to face each other. It was a complicated set of maneuvers, one that Eliza had spent many hours learning, and though she went through her paces gracefully, she always felt a little nervous, lest she make a misstep and bring the coordinated roomful of dancers to a crashing log jam. Yet every time she felt a twinge of anxiety she found Major André’s hand in hers, or his eyes on hers, and he deftly set her to rights.

  If, at the end of the dance, he had asked her to run away with him, she might have exclaimed, “Long live the King!” and run all the way to the docks by his side. But before she knew it the music faded out, and Major André was bowing to her.

  “It was like dancing with a dove,” he said. “I felt as though you carried me up and down the room.”

  “Oh, Major André,” Eliza said, blushing, “you are too kind.” It was not the most original line, but it was all she could come up with, rattled by how charming she found him.

  Eliza caught Angelica’s gaze across the dance floor as she was bowing to the handsome British adjutant, and her sister shot her a wink and a little smile. Then Angelica threw back her shoulders in an exaggerated signal to encourage her sister to lift her chest in a more enticing pose. Eliza quickly followed suit because big sisters know a thing or two.

  And then he was gone, and a white-powdered wig took his place, capping a pair of russet eyebrows and piercing, amused blue eyes. Alexander Hamilton looked as surprised as she was to be asking her to dance.

  “Miss Schuyler? I hope my name on your dance card wasn’t too alarming, but your mother said she would make me sleep in the barn if I didn’t sign up.”

  Eliza refused to acknowledge him just long enough to make him squirm, then finally took his hand and allowed herself to be led back to the head of the room. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” she said as they walked, “but she’s going to have you sleep in the barn anyway.”

  “Ah—” Alex’s voice was cut off by the first strains of a reel. Almost reluctantly, he offered her his hand, and Eliza put her gloved fingers into it as though reaching into a pail of sour milk for a ring that had fallen. Yet she couldn’t help but note that his hand had a sure and confident touch: light and attentive, and if she was being honest, not completely repulsive.

  It irritated her, this confidence, and so she sought to undermine it.

  “Colonel Hamilton, if you please,” she said, adjusting herself beneath his grip. “I am not an apple on the tree to be tested for ripeness. If you could perhaps squeeze a little less tightly. I have worn corsets that took less liberty.”

  Alex’s eyes went wide, and his fingers, which barely rested on her shoulder and waist, relax
ed still more. “I do apologize,” he said in a voice so aggrieved that she felt a twinge of guilt.

  They began to move to the music. Alex’s step was as assured as Major André’s had been, but Eliza deliberately dragged her feet a little, so that he was forced to hurry her along to keep them from bumping into the other couples on the dance floor. A smile remained on his face, but it was a little strained.

  They whirled by Major André, who had his hand in Henrietta Beaverbroke’s. Eliza tried to catch his eye, but the music called for a whirl and they swept away from each other. Again, Eliza found herself face-to-face with the colonel’s handsome but increasingly strained face. Spots of sweat had appeared on his temples beneath his periwig.

  “I wonder that your parents would allow you to dance with a British officer,” he said, nodding at the major.

  Eliza frowned and did not answer.

  “Miss Schuyler, have I offended you in some way?” he asked suddenly. The dance took them away from each other for a moment, and when he was back he continued: “If so, I do apologize. I can assure you that my errand today is as odious to me as it is to General Schuyler, for whom I have only the utmost respect.”

  “You have a strange way of showing it, then,” Eliza shot back, but again she felt a little badly for her partner. His voice was genuinely full of concern, and her own father had told her innumerable times that war forced men to make compromises that in any other circumstances would be intolerable. But she didn’t care. He had insulted her father’s honor, and she didn’t care if he was the most handsome soldier at the ball (much more handsome than even the British major, she had to admit); he would have to do a lot more than offer a de rigueur apology to get back in her good graces.

  The colonel seemed about to say something more, but the dance called for a particularly complicated set of turns, bows, and weavings, and they were both forced to concentrate to move through them smoothly. But as they came to the end of the maneuver, their path brought them close to Major André and Henrietta. Eliza’s eyes caught those of the dashing British soldier, who flashed her a smile, and she fell behind a half step. As she ducked beneath Alex’s arm, her heel came down squarely on the bridge of her partner’s foot.

  Alex gasped, but he managed to repress a yelp. When they were face-to-face again, she glanced at him with equal measures of guilt and glee.

  “Normally when a gentleman’s foot interposes itself between his partner’s and the floor, he apologizes for being so clumsy,” she said in the kind of imperious voice that would have made Angelica proud.

  “Did you drive the sharp wooden heel of your shoe into the top of my foot, threatening to break my arch?” he asked in the lightest possible tone. “I didn’t notice.”

  Eliza couldn’t help it. She smiled. And when he unexpectedly threw in an unscripted bound instead of the expected coupé, she let out the tiniest of whoops, and would have fallen if his strong arm hadn’t pressed firmly into the small of her back.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said when she was upright again. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

  She had to hand it him. He was good, this Alexander Hamilton. Under other circumstances, she might actually like him. But right now she had about seven more minutes of his time, and she was determined to make them as difficult as possible.

  7

  Gauntlet (Or Handkerchief?) Thrown

  Schuyler Ballroom

  Albany, New York

  November 1777

  As the night wore on, the frenzied pace of the dancing picked up. The officers’ uniforms flashed with medals and a few gold braids. More than a snippet of petticoats could be glimpsed as the turns grew wilder and the men’s hands around the ladies’ waists began to intentionally miss their marks to hold on to something more interesting. Soon the ballroom grew overly warm despite the mid-November chill.

  After taking his leave and bowing to Eliza Schuyler, Alex went back to drinking mulled cider from the Schuyler orchards spiked with apple brandy from the Pastures’ own trees and followed that, perhaps a bit unwisely, with French wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves. In between dancing reel after reel with the eligible young ladies of Albany, he went back to regaling perfumed clouds of girls who clustered around him like life-sized lollipops with stories of battlefield valor and carnage.

  Taking advantage of the general’s lavish hospitality, he then stepped into the smoking room to indulge in fine Virginia cigars and whiskey brewed beyond the Kentucky frontier before intrepidly accepting a slug of some home-brewed spirit that unfortunately tasted like serpents’ urine. At last, he returned to the ballroom and found himself once again surrounded by a clique of girls.

  Well, two girls.

  From the eight who had fawned on him earlier in the evening, the Misses Van der Schnitzel, Ten Broek, and Beaverbroke were all standing in a corner, waiting for their chance to dance with the British adjutant, one Major André, who seemed to have won the hearts of all the ladies that evening.

  But the loyal Misses Tambling-Goggin and Van Liverwurst eyed Alex flirtatiously above their fans. They were comely lasses to be sure, the kind he would have happily spent the time with back in Morristown or Elizabeth, yet his eyes rolled right over them and shifted back to the dance floor.

  For there were the Schuyler sisters, the undisputed queens of the party: Angelica, regal and self-possessed, even next to her less-than-graceful partner, a short and portly but jolly-looking older gentleman; and Peggy, laughing vivaciously and looking as though she were dancing with a French count rather than an awkward lad, the young Van Rensselaer heir. But above all there was Eliza, wearing a dress more suited to the schoolroom than the ballroom, who had insulted his name and rank at every turn, and had even stepped on his foot—and who made him want nothing more than for her to step on the other.

  Why was it he couldn’t take his eyes off the one girl who failed to notice his impressive gifts? What was it about the sharp-tongued lass wearing a homespun gown, a modest cotton dress that touched his heart in its bold demonstration of her alliance to the patriot cause?

  And why on earth was she dancing for the third time with that blasted British officer, Major André?

  “I say, Colonel Hamilton, if you would like to return to the dance floor, I would be happy to join you,” Miss Tambling-Goggin said, sounding anything but pleased. After all, no girl likes to flirt with a boy whose eyes keep wandering away.

  “I do apologize, but I am quite satisfied where I am. Please, do not take my fatigue as a sign of lack of interest in your considerable charms,” he said, flashing her a winning, but rueful smile.

  “Since the colonel is unwilling,” said a male voice. “Perhaps you will allow me to shepherd you to the dance floor.”

  The speaker was another man whom Alex didn’t recognize and who, despite being in his early twenties, wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was a tall, well-built man, though his soft neck and softer stomach spoke of a fondness for food and alcohol that were clearly getting the better of him, judging from the way he swayed back and forth. In fact, Alex was wondering whether the man had been drunk when he got dressed, because he was wearing one white and one brown hose beneath his expensive velvet breeches.

  “So what do you say, Letitia?” he slurred.

  Miss Tambling-Goggin turned toward the new speaker. “Alas, but like the colonel, I am quite satisfied with where I am as well.”

  “Don’t be that way, come now,” said the rude stranger.

  “The lady has made her preference known,” said Alex mildly.

  “Yet I shall make her preference for her, Mister . . .”

  Alex held out his hand, hoping to defuse the suddenly tense situation. “It is Colonel Hamilton, actually. I do not believe I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance—”

  The man looked down at Alex’s hand, but didn’t shake it. Only then did Alex notice that he was leaning he
avily on a cane—and then, looking farther down, he saw that the brown hose was not actually cloth. It was a wooden leg.

  “I would shake your hand, Colonel, but as you can see my right hand is otherwise engaged,” the man said with a dramatic sigh.

  “I do beg your pardon, sir,” Alex said as the music stopped; he noticed Eliza, Angelica, Peggy, and their dance partners heading their way. A half-dozen pairs of eyes were trained on him, and he felt like a complete cad. “A war injury?”

  “Indeed. Some of us haven’t spent the past year and a half writing letters in an office. We spent it on the battlefield.” He snorted. “It’s quite ironic when you consider it. Normally you would expect the person of highborn rank—that’s me, by the way,” he added contemptuously. “Normally you would expect the son of gentry to shirk the battlefield. But in this case it is the nobody commoner who flees glory and hides behind a clerical duty or some other equally flimsy excuse while the nobleman defends his country’s honor. But then, it isn’t really your country now, is it? Where were you born again? An island off the coast of nowhere?” the man sneered, as the Schuyler girls and their companions clustered around their little group.

  Alex felt his cheeks go red and had to resist the urge to throw down his glove for a challenge—or just punch the man outright. No matter how important his work as aide-de-camp and ambassador for General Washington, his spending the war doing various non-combat jobs was a source of great shame to him. He wanted to risk life and limb for this country, which, though he hadn’t been born here and had only lived on its shores for a few years, had nevertheless embraced him and inspired him with its ideals and potential. Only the fact that the man speaking so rudely to him was an injured veteran stayed his hand.

  “I-I do apologize,” Alex said again, letting the slur against his birthplace go. “Your country owes you a debt of honor.”

  “Yes, it does. Whereas all it owes you is a paycheck.”